“No amount of spin or hopeful guesswork can disguise the fact that today's figures show that the UK's previously very weak recovery has effectively stalled. The 0.2% growth figure is far short of the 0.8% which was needed to meet the Chancellor’s feeble recovery target. Our performance compares poorly with that of countries such as Germany and France.

“With the exception of finance and construction (which endured two very bad quarters previously), no sector of the UK economy grew in the last quarter. It is unlikely that construction growth will be sustained and it is deeply disturbing that manufacturing is down. The fact that public spending made no contribution to growth in the second quarter is significant given the further deep cuts planned by the Government.

“The fact remains that low consumer demand, falling real wages, poor business confidence and weak employment recovery add up to a very bleak picture unless the Chancellor acts now to generate growth.”